'Red flag' raised that 'Machiavellian' Trump aide is building MAGA army to outlast Trump
Stephen Miller is building a MAGA army inside the federal government that will long outlast President Donald Trump, according to a new analysis.
The 79-year-old president has cut hundreds of thousands of civil servants from the federal workforce in his first year back in office, and MS NOW's Zeeshan Aleem argued that Miller and his allies are locking in his reactionary authoritarian agenda for years to come.
"Now he’s entering the second stage of 'Trumpifying' the federal bureaucracy: hiring a new set of workers for the civil service, but with an eye to transform 'the deep state' into what could be called 'the MAGA state,'" Aleem wrote.
The columnist points to a new Washington Post report that reveals new details about the administration's plan to capture the federal government for the foreseeable future with a wave of younger political appointees loyal to the MAGA agenda.
"Miller is one of the most Machiavellian figures in the Trump administration and one of its most vocal ideologues in favor of authoritarian and nativist governance," Aleem wrote. "Miller surely approves of a new immigration services job posting titled 'Homeland Defender,' which, according to the Post, asks applicants to be ready to 'protect your homeland and defend your culture.'"
Washington is filled with unemployed highly qualified experts thanks to last year's mass layoffs by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, but the Trump administration is refusing to hire anyone who's worked in government before in favor of inexperienced, younger loyalists.
"Yet another red flag can be seen in how Scott Kupor, the head of the Office of Personnel Management, said he’s focused on making the civil service younger," Aleem wrote. "He told the Post that he intends to address the fact that only 7 percent of the federal workforce is under 30 years old."
That Miller acolyte is building what he calls a "Tech Force" that will use AI tools to assist in government operations, and the columnist concluded that it's clear the Trump administration is looking to permanently transform the federal workforce into a MAGA political instrument.
"Historically, the federal workforce is a corps of nonpartisan employees who use their expertise to advise on and execute the policies of the federal government," he wrote. "Trump wants to turn it into an army of reactionary yes-men. Even after he leaves office, many of these MAGA state hires are likely to remain, and the government will be worse off because of it."